HP Mini 1103 Review and Ratings

Editors’ Rating:

Our Verdict:
This low-cost netbook's long battery life and solid software bundle help reduce the sting of its so-so performance. It’s a good choice for budget-minded consumers and businesspeople who need a road-companion PC. Read More…

What We Liked…

Excellent battery life

Aggressively priced

Sturdy keyboard

What We Didn’t…

Underwhelming performance

Flat audio

Glossy top half collects fingerprints

HP Mini 1103 Review

HP's Mini netbooks have traditionally been well priced, durable, and fast enough for basic tasks. A new model for 2011, the Mini 1103, acts as an inexpensive successor to other business netbooks like the Mini 5101 and 5102. HP is positioning this squarely as a companion PC, a netbook you use for travel or when you need an alternative to your main desktop or laptop. The Mini 1103's $299 price point is hard to beat, and the system delivers excellent battery life along with average netbook performance from its Intel Atom N455 processor.

Design

Wrapped top to bottom in black shiny plastic, the Mini 1103 looks like a generic but professional netbook. The top half has a slippery coating, while the bottom half has a textured feel that keeps it from sliding around on your lap. While attractive, the shiny black plastic on the top collects fingerprints easily. At 2.8 pounds and measuring 0.9x10.5x7.5 inches, it's svelte enough to be unobtrusive for travel.

The Mini 1103's right side features a media card reader, power switch, two USB ports, and a Kensington lock slot. The display's backing is glossy and collects fingerprints.

The Mini 1103 has a standard array of ports: three USB ports, a VGA-out port, a Kensington lock slot, an Ethernet jack, the power port, and a combo headphone/microphone jack. Also included is a flash-card reader that supports the SD, SDHC, SDXC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and MultiMediaCard formats. Connectivity on the unit includes Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth for various peripherals. A 250GB, 7,200rpm hard drive is included in the standard configuration, with a 160GB or 320GB drive offered in other configurations.

Features

A 0.3-megapixel VGA Webcam is embedded in the Mini 1103's bezel. A small LED light turns on when it's in use. The cam is low-res, though, and as a result provided lackluster visuals. In our trials, pictures and video looked grainy, dark, and washed out. One friend using Skype said she could make out enough detail and facial features to make video calling worthwhile, but we suggest tempering your expectations.

On the other hand, we liked the Mini 1103's keyboard, which is 93 percent of full size. It's not of the Chiclet variety that has become nearly ubiquitous on netbooks lately, but its layout allows for accurate typing, though those with larger hands might feel a bit cramped. The keyboard offers reverse-operation function keys along the top row that act as easy-to-access media and system controls. You can adjust brightness, volume, and wireless access just by pushing one of them. But if you want to access an actual function (to, say, access the BIOS during bootup), you’ll need to hit the Fn key in concert with the appropriate function key to make it register.

As for the 3.1x1.25-inch touch pad below the keyboard, we found it very responsive, if also a bit cramped. There are two small plastic mouse buttons below the touch. In general, were comfortable and responsive, if a little cheap-feeling.

The Mini 1103's keyboard is 93 percent of full size, but it works surprisingly well for being small. The touch pad is a little cramped, but the physical buttons are responsive.

Embedded into the glossy bezel above the deck is the 10.1-inch LED-backlit display. The screen has a 1,024x600 native resolution and a matte finish, the latter helping to keep stray reflections down. And even with the matte finish, the picture was bright and the colors rich. Video playback from Hulu and YouTube streamed smoothly for such a low-powered machine. Streaming playback stuttered a lot when trying to play 480p (640x480) or 720p (1,280x720) streams, but 360p (640x360) generally worked fine. Unfortunately, when video was viewed more than 20 degrees off-angle from the screen's center, the picture's colors appeared washed out.

On the left side of the device, you'll find a power port, a VGA-out, a USB port, and a combo microphone/headphone slot.

The speakers, which line the front of the unit, can crank up quite loud for a netbook. That said, sound quality is poor: Music sounds flat, and spoken voices came off harsh when volume was turned up. On the song “What's My Name” by Rihanna, the bass and midrange tones could hardly be heard even at loud volume. This could be acceptable for watching a presentation, but it’s not ideal for a movie.

Performance

The Mini 1103 has a standard Intel Atom N455 processor. We run three tests on a netbook's processor. First up is our Cinebench 10 test, which taxes all available cores on the CPU while rendering a standard test image. The Mini 1103 scored 840 on this test, which is less than the 899 average we've seen across netbooks we've tested. To put that in perspective, that score is nearly identical to the 870 the HP Mini 100e earned—and that notebook, while also $299, is made for kids. For more business-centric users, a comparison with the Samsung NF310 is more appropriate. That netbook is $399 but otherwise has the same sort of sober aesthetic as the Mini 1103. It scored 1,458 on this test, proving its processing superiority with its 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 CPU. (The Mini 1103's chip is a slightly older chip with lower power consumption.)

Next, we ran our iTunes Conversion Test, in which the test system converts 11 standard MP3 files to AAC format. The Mini 1103 completed the test task in 18 minutes and 45 seconds, close to the 19:07 average we've seen across the netbook category. By comparison, the HP Mini 100e ran the iTunes test at 19:22, while the Samsung NF310 ran the test in 19:36.

The Mini 1103's lid collects fingerprints but still manages a nice balance for both business and consumer use.

On our Windows Media Encoder (WME) test, in which we convert a 3-minute-and-15-second video file to DVD-quality format, the Mini 1103 took 26 minutes and 23 seconds to complete the task, which is almost two minutes longer than the 24:41 netbook category average. Running the test a second time, with a simultaneous spyware scan by Windows Defender running in the background, the WME test took 33:11, nearly seven minutes longer than the first time. This shows that the single-core Intel Atom 455 isn't strong at handling legitimate multitasking. The Samsung NF310 showed a little more processing oomph in this trial: It ran the WME test at 18:36 and the multitasking test at 21:26. We should note, though, that in the bigger picture, nearly all netbook scores are abysmal compared with those of traditional notebooks, so don’t get overly hung up on these numbers.

To evaluate the 3D-graphics capabilities of the machine's integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150, we ran our 3DMark06 test. At its native resolution of 1,024x600, the Mini 1103 scored a low 151. (We couldn't run the test at a resolution of 1,024x768, as we normally do, because the Mini 1103 doesn't support that resolution.) But it's not alone at the bottom: The Samsung NF310 scored a 145 at its native resolution and 149 at 1,024x768 resolution. A couple of standout netbooks with some graphics oomph can top 2,000, but most range from 140 to 170 on this test. Case in point: The HP Mini 5103, a much more expensive business netbook at $683, didn’t do any better, with a score of 146, so money doesn’t get you everything. With these scores, the Mini 1103 isn't a machine for gaming, photo editing, or any other graphics work, but it can handle simple Flash-based games like Farmville on Facebook. The intensely addicting Flash game Robot Unicorn Attack had some slowdown, but it played okay for the most part.

The brightest light on the Mini 1103's feature list is the six-cell battery that comes with the $299 configuration. During our strenuous battery-rundown test, in which we stream video from Hulu.com at reduced volume and brightness, the Mini 1103's battery lasted an astonishing 5 hours and 29 minutes. This is more than an hour over the netbook-category average and is the best battery result we've seen out of a $299 netbook. It's certainly much better than the Mini 100e, which only put out a terrible 2:18 with its three-cell battery. It also reigns supreme over the Samsung NF310, which lasted 4:09 with its six-cell battery.

Conclusion

On the machine, HP offers an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty, backed by 24/7 toll-free tech support, one-hour-response e-mail assistance, and online chat-based help—a generous array, especially for the low price. Extended HP Total Care packages are available as well, starting at $119.99 for a two-year package with round-trip shipping in case of the need for repairs.

Onboard is a solid assortment of helpful software. For office denizens, there's a free, ad-supported version of Microsoft Word and Excel, which you can upgrade to the full version at extra cost. You’ll also find the full Corel Office Suite. For security, McAfee Total Protection is provided for anti-malware services, which is nice to have, but it can be annoying because it pops up on the screen often. And for the Webcam, HP offers ArcSoft's Camera Suite, which worked well even if the images didn't look good.

Additionally, HP includes the QuickWeb instant-on feature, which lets you access the Internet, Skype, a music player, and more without booting into Windows. QuickWeb is different on the Mini 1103 than on other HP Mini models because you have to configure the system to boot into QuickWeb through Windows, but once you do, it will always boot into QuickWeb first, stay there for as many seconds as you like, and then boot into Windows, so long as you don’t touch it. If you don’t set an amount of time to be in QuickWeb, you’ll need to click a Windows button to continue the boot-up process into Windows. It’s a helpful feature, as it took only 11 seconds to boot up with QuickWeb as opposed to the 1 minute and 41 seconds it took to boot Windows 7 Starter. And we like that HP has made it more configurable, so you can adjust the time it spends in QuickWeb or turn off the feature altogether.

In the end, the Mini 1103 is a case of getting what you pay for. For $299, this is a great choice for anyone in need of a small PC companion with excellent battery life. Students and businesspeople alike that don't require major graphics or processing performance will find a lot to like here. The Samsung NF310 offers a sleeker design and a better display, but it costs $100 more and also has shorter battery life. For ultra-mobile users, despite the lackluster performance, the Mini 1103 is a very solid choice.

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